MovieChat Forums > Howards End (1993) Discussion > How did a lease on a house work back the...

How did a lease on a house work back then?

posted 14 years ago by cookiela2001
5 replies | jump to latest

I'm pretty familiar with how modern leases on apartments work in Los Angeles and NYC, but how did they work back then?

The Schlegels lease their home in London, and they have to move in 18 months when the lease expires, and the building is to be demolished.

How long would the leases be for the new places they were looking at? And does Mr. Wilcox own the London house he shows her, or is it something he would sublease to her? Because not only are there very strict subletting laws now (for finite periods of time), but leases, from a tenenat's point of view, don't "run out" anymore...they're automatically renewed if the renter hasn't broken any rules.

[–] angharad83 14 years ago

I think this is a different kind of lease - in the UK (still today) you can buy a house either freehold - which means you own it completely and it's yours to sell on or leave to whoever you want to when you die - or leasehold, which means (I think) that you own the property for a certain length of time (often these leases are for a very long period, like several hundred years). When that is up you need to renew it if possible (or indeed try buying the house freehold), but as whoever owned the land on which the building was standing had other plans (i-e building a block of flats) this was not possible. Hope this helps

[–] mark-1589 13 years ago

The lease back then was in essence the same as the lease now: it is a contract by which the freehold owner of property conveys to the other contracting party the right to use the property (for most purposes as if s/he were the owner) for a certain period of time, or even for an undetermined period. As the property right (the leasehold) is based upon a contract, then you have to consider the contract and what it provides. Within certain limitations, essentially the contracting parties can write what they wish into it. It can be for 100 years or 1 day (one famous contract case from about 1903 concerned the rental of an apartment for ONE DAY, because the apartment had a view of the route by which the king would travel by carriage to his coronation). The lease can also be of indeteminate length, allowing either party to terminate it upon a certain notice period (two-weeks notice was the traditional notice period for employment). Now much has changed because there have been many innovations on the types of terms that can be written into a lease. Also, in the last century there is a great deal of regulation of certain types of contracts - lease contracts for residences being one of them. In many cities, leases of apartments are subject to rent-control and do not allow for the owner to terminate the lease and force the renter to leave.

[–] cookiela2001 13 years ago

Hmmm. So back then, it sounds like a lease was whatever the parties agreed to.

It's funny you should answer my old post, just now, because I was watching "The Forstyte Saga" this weekend, and when they're tallying up a widow's assets, one of the lawyers says, "She also has the lease. That could be worth something." Then another said, "It only has a few more months to run."

So I guess they were thinking the place could be sublet by the widow for a profit.

[–] marecek (122) 6 years ago

Well, to my surprise, I see a post which I wrote 7 years ago on IMDB. I suppose Movie Chat has taken over the comments from IMDB. I just signed up for Movie Chat today and I am glad to see that they have the comment from IMDB, as I wrote many good ones over the years and had assumed they were gone forever.

[–] MissGruntled 7 years ago

I believe that they owned the house, but that that they only had a lease for the use of the land on which it stood.

On British property shows, emphasis is always placed on whether a property for sale is leasehold or freehold. If leasehold, you need to ensure that the lease is for a very long period, say 100 years or more, or you may find that you have trouble selling the house or apartment later.